Oregon ranchers wary after wolf pack spotted in Wallowa County

Oregon Department of Fish and WildlifeRuss Morgan, wolf program coordinator with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, holds a male wolf that was anesthetized and fitted with a radio collar after attacking livestock in Baker County this spring. Federal hunters later killed the wolf and a female companion after efforts to keep them away from livestock failed.IMNAHA -- The discovery of a pack of 10 gray wolves in the heavily timbered mountain canyons of Wallowa County is gratifying to some, a bad dream for others -- especially ranchers who fear attacks on their cattle, sheep and horses.

The pack, filmed Nov. 12 by a biologist in a helicopter, were spotted trotting through a snow-covered forest about 15 miles east of Joseph. It's believed to be composed of six half-grown pups born in spring, their parents and two other adults.

"Emotionally, this is very hard on the ranchers," said John Williams, an Oregon State University agricultural extension agent in Enterprise. "No, the ranchers don't want them. It's going to have a significant impact on their bottom line."

"This is not a surprise," he said. "It is certainly likely more wolves will come, and it is very likely there are more wolves than we know about now."

The wolves, the largest pack confirmed since the animals began returning to the state in the late 1990s, were seen in the Imnaha Game Management Unit at 5,000 to 6,000 feet elevation and are living on the area's deer and elk.

Wolves -- once shot, trapped and poisoned to near-extinction -- are protected statewide under Oregon's Endangered Species Act and have federal protection in parts of the state. The state's Wolf Conservation and Management Plan calls for restoring the gray wolf, defined as the presence of four breeding pairs for three consecutive years, Morgan said.

The pack sighting is the latest development to heat up debates on handling wolves.

On Sept. 5, federal hunters killed two young gray wolves in Baker County in the first hunt authorized in Oregon in decades. The pair had killed 27 sheep, a goat and calf at two Oregon ranches, and other measures had failed to ward them off.

Idaho and Montana, where wolf populations have rebounded, held their first wolf hunting seasons in decades this fall to manage the animals.

Idaho now has about 1,000 wolves, said Suzanne Stone, a spokeswoman in Boise for the Defenders of Wildlife environmental group. Some of those are migrating into eastern Oregon. The mother wolf in the Wallowa County pack, for example, is a 3-year-old born near Idaho City, northeast of Boise, that wandered into Oregon.

"I'm not sure I'm real thrilled about having a wolf pack in the timber out here," said Wallowa County Commissioner Susan Roberts, who worries about conflicts between wolves and visitors to her picturesque county. Only one North American death -- in Saskatchewan in 2005 -- has been confirmed as caused by wolves, however.

Rancher Rod Childers, who chairs wolf committees for the county and the Oregon Cattlemen's Association, fears wolves might put some ranchers out of business.

Wolves account for fewer than 1 percent of livestock losses in the northern Rockies and Canada, according to Defenders of Wildlife, but individual ranchers have sustained herd losses of 6 to 7 percent, Childers said.

"It's going to depend on your size of operation and how hard you get hit," he said of the potential impact.

Williams, the extension agent, said that while wolf advocates downplay the impact of wolves on ranchers, "the data shows they do eat cattle and lambs and sheep and horses."

Wallowa County ranchers may already have sustained losses, he said. Cattlemen have seen "dry cows" come in off the range in recent weeks, he said, which could indicate that their calves were killed by wolves. On the other hand, the calves could have been felled by illness or cougars, he said.

Childers said Wallowa County ranchers are willing to co-exist with wolves but want authority from the Legislature to shoot any that threaten their cattle or sheep. Oregon's wolf policy prohibits shooting wolves without a permit, even when wolves attack livestock.

"A fence isn't going to stop them," he said. "You can't build a fence that is going to keep a wolf out."